the new enabling act

from raw story: I cannot view the current debate about the Bush Administration’s latest attempt to remove all checks on its power without thinking about how my German and Austrian grandparents must have watched with disbelief as Europe sank into the madness of fascism...

At the time, perhaps, it was difficult to recognize the exact moment when the die was cast - when the malignancy gained sufficient momentum to make what followed inevitable. But in hindsight, the Enabling Act, passed by the German legislature in 1933, might well have been the point of no return.